Wars
and Conflicts of Yemen
(1914-Present)

Yemen
Civil War
(1962-1970)--
Egypt sent troops to support the Yemeni
Republican government against Royalist rebels
supported by Saudi Arabia.

South Yemen
War of Independence
(1963-1967)--Known
to the British as the Aden Emergency.
Britain granted independence to South Yemen in
1967.

Yemen War
(1972)--Border
war between the Republican nation of North Yemen,
and the Marxist nation of South Yemen

Yemen War
(1979)--Border
war between the Republican nation of North Yemen,
and the Marxist nation of South Yemen

South Yemen
Civil War
(1986)--Civil war
among South Yemen's ruling Communist Party. This
war left 5,000 dead, destroyed $500 million dollars
worth of Soviet-supplied weaponry, and caused a
major shift in leadership that eventually helped
lead to unification with North Yemen in
1990

Yemen Civil
War (1994)--The Marxist
South Yemenis attempted to secede from the newly
united Yemen. The government crushed the southern
rebellion, leaving 10,000 dead.

Sa'dah
(Houthi)
Insurgency
(2004-2014)---In
2004, the Sa'dah Insurgency began in the
northwestern tip of Yemen, with the Islamic cleric
Hussein Badreddin al-Houthi, the leader of the
Shiite Zaidiyyah sect, launched an uprising against
the Yemeni government. While the rebellion by the
Shiite Zaidis (commonly to as the Houthis in
reference to the name of the rebellion's founder),
sputtered on and off for a decade or so, the
political instability of the government in Sana'a
led to an opportunity for the Houthi forces to
seize the capital city and declare themselves as
the new government of Yemen. This event (September
21, 2014), began a confusing period of poltical and
military chaos that pitted various factions against
each other. In March, 2015, the Houthis effectively
turned the Houthi rebellion into a national civil
war. (see below).

Yemeni Political Uprising
(2011-2012)-Violent political
transition/revolution that replaced long-time
president Salah with the long-time vice-president,
Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi. Hadi would serve as president
until forced out of the capital by Houthi forces in
March, 2015. Hadi leads one of the factions in the
current Yemen Civil War.

Yemen Civil War
(2015-Present)--With the Houthi seizure of the
national capital of Sana'a, the multiple conflicts
that had embroiled Yemen (political unrest in Sana'a,
South Yemen secessionists, the Houthi war, the fight
against al-Qaida and ISIS/ISIL jihadists, and the
various foreign interventions) all coalesced into a
complex, multi-faceted national civil war. The
existing regime, led by President Hadi, was forced to
flee Sana'a after the Houthis seized power (with
assistance from an army faction loyal to former
president Saleh) and declared themselves the
legitimate government of Yemen. Hadi fled to the
southern city of Aden, where, with aid from Saudi
Arabia and other conservative Sunni Arab states, he
wages war against the Houthis. The jihadist al-Qaida
and ISIS factions in Yemen are fighting each
other, as well as both the Houthis and the Hadi
faction.

In 2017, Yemen was hit with a
deadly cholera outbreak that has affected nearly one
million Yemenis as the complex civil war and foreign
intervention continues. In November, 2017, amid
continuing airstrikes by the Saudis and their Sunni
Arab coalition, the Houthis escalated their response
by launching
a ballistic missile at the
King Khalid military airfield near the Saudi capital
of Riyadh. Given the long-standing support of the
Houthis by Iran, this escalation could have serious
consequences throughout the region.